Just started off a beach on a broad reach in 20+ winds when port shroud can off. Only starboard shroud holding mast up on this tack. Clevis pin appeared to brake off?? With all the stress on the other shroud it finally broke as well dropping mast like a rocket (nearly injuring crew badly). Vintage 1980 H18 but nicely restored for the most part. Unknown age on clevis pins and rings and shrouds. Any idea if a clevis pin can come ever come off like this or a ring break? Scared the daylights out crew and me. Lost both shrouds overboard upon disconnect from top of mast so I could not exaime for damage. Happen ever to anyone else? Thank you!

Usually the shrouds break right at the nicro fittings. Inspect closely. Even ONE broken strand of stainless is too much. I saw a shroud snap at the adjuster. Besides sounding like a 12 gauge shot going off, the whipping wire actually cut my friends arm so deeply he needed stitches.

I had shrouds go on two separate boats - Apparently I forgot the lesson from the first occurance after the passing of 20 years.

Anyway - check out Open Forum thread "How old is your rigging" Sunjammers Brad has some great advice.

_________________The fact that this windy world is largely covered in water obviously means that man was meant to sail.

Lost both shrouds overboard upon disconnect from top of mast so I could not exaime for damage.

I need you to help me out here. The shrouds are attached to the hulls with anchor pins, twist toggles, adjusters, and clevis pins with ring dings. At the mast, the shrouds are attached to the mast tang with a large shackle and pin. This results in three attachment points.

You state that you lost the shrouds overboard, so I am guessing that all three attaching points failed. This must have been an extremely violent demasting.

I have demasted after having an anchor pin break, but I did not loose any shrouds due to the other connections. But the only thing that broke was the anchor pin.

I am tending to wonder if you had the boat rigged correctly with the correct hardware. You state that you lost both shrouds, but did you loose the forestay? If not, did you check to see if it has any damage at the top where it connects to the mast with the shrouds? Have you checked the mast tang for damage? Finally, you state that the starboard shroud let go due to the additional stress. There should not have been any additional stress as the leeward shroud always goes slack. The stress applied to the starboard shroud would have been normal stress.

Standing rigging (Shrouds, Forestay and Bridles) is critical. These should be inspected often. I take a trip around the boat and look at each clevis and ring, each time I launch.

Clevis pins are strong and seldom fail, but they can fall out. The rings that hold them in can catch on ropes and twist out allowing the clevis pins to fall out. You should tape over all clevis rings to be the safest. On the shrouds, you should tape over the lower sets and have a boot over the upper one in the adjuster. I would actually tape them all. This can help eliminate the ropes from dragging across the rings and pulling them out. Be careful when pulling the boot down over the rings. The rings can catch on the boot and as you pull the boot down the ring can pull out of the clevis.

The shroud shackle is similar. Very strong and seldom a failure unless the shackle pin comes out. These shackles have a hole in the pin to add a safety wire. A short length of stainless wire strand that passes through the pin hole and wraps around the shackle hoop as a "keeper". This prevents the pin from un-threading even if loose.

By the way, I had this happen in the Ocean one time on my 16. Just tacked out of the Mission Bay in San Diego and headed north on a port tack. The lee shroud started swaying free as one of the rings had come out and finally the clevis dropped out. I had my crew slip to the lee side and stick a bunjee hook into the shroud and adjuster. I stayed on port and sailed up the beach to just in front of the local Hobie Dealer back then (Hobie Sport Center) and sailed into the beach keeping the pressure on the port tack the whole way. The life guards were not too happy, but they understood once we came in through the surf. I had my crew run in, get a clevis and ring. We installed it and off we went for a nice day of sailing.

I was not as "luckey" on another day. The mast came down, but not hard. Usually the mast just floats down like a parachute when a shroud goes. We tacked and .... eeeeeeeeee plop the mast fell over. At least we were close to the beach that time.

You learn from your mistakes.... hopefully you also can learn from other peoples mistakes!

There are many components involved here, and over the years, we have had ALL fail EXCEPT clevis pins! Mind you, we only buy Hobie parts.
1. When cat-traxing the Hobies from the beach down into the water, with the ropes lashed around the shrouds/anchor pins, it can happen that a ring-ding gets caught in the rope, and pulls out when you remove the cat-trax. We usually discover this on the other side of the lake/river as we do our first tack!
2. Anchor pins can fracture, especially from stress when sailing in light and fluky winds. We now renew these pins every year/every second year.
3. The Twist toggles are also subject to severe stress, especially when new club members are learning to tack and gybe. We have never had one break apart, but we have had one split half open. (This was on a 'new' second hand boat, so who knows how old it was.)
4. We have also experienced failures at the nicopress-thimble junction. Examine for any strand failures every month, especially if salt water sailing.
5. We have had a mast shackle (the one up at the mast tang) become undone, luckily while it was still on shore. Good eyes, and a quick tie down with some copper wire prevented that from happening again.
6. We have had a bow/bridle shackle come loose, (not checked before start-up), again, we were lucky that it stayed together long enough to reach shore. Now we instruct new students to check, check and then re-check all points of rigging.

Down to 3 degrees Celcius this last weekend here in Ottawa, Canada, only 2 weeks of sailing left this year. Time to start planning winter projects.

Good winds

_________________1989 Hobie SX18 Sail # 1947 "In Theory..."'Only two things are infinite, the universe, and human stupidity. But I'm not sure about the former.'

First of all I thank you all so much for your promt and informative replies. I am a new poster here so I am pleasantly surprised at all the quality comments. Thank you and let me add a few more details to help solve some of the apparent mystery.

My H18 is a vinatge 1980 that I aquired three years ago after it was laying around for a few years. Sail #03. It was an old racing boat used by a state's special olympics team. I have been sailing or crewing for ~30 years.

I have replaced or upgraded most of the simple things like sheets, pins, rudders, etc. but the rigging could be quite old (dare I say possbly original??). I have battle tested this boat in hard conditions in the Atlantic off NJ for two years and this year moved it to the beautiful Rehoboth Bay in DE. It sailed beautifully! Especially in heavy air.

On the day, I had just departed from shore in a very stiff wind 20+MPH from direct startboard (later found on the web that it gusted to 30 during the same time of my disater). I was about 50 yards from shore, sheets way out to maintain a slower speed till in deeper (rudder) water and noticed the mast learning forward and the lee side shroud dangling up near the forestay. I first thought it was the forestay ! Realizing that the only support on my current tack was from the windward shroud I dare not tack or change course less dropping the mast on my head! With no way to slow down I must have traveled 1/2 mile without course alter and planning my next move (and calling for assistance on a portable VHF). Here comes my mistake. I nosed upwind ever so slighly to turn into the wind and wham the mast fell into the wind with the windward shroud also snapping off. Crew (wife) and me scared but not hurt.

Now for the fun part. Both my shroud adjusters where in place undamaged and firmly mounted to the hull. It apearred that the shrouds were just disconnected. I expected to see a few inches of the shroud still attached with broken cable! What gives? Could the rings have been removed from the clevis pins - doubt it as the rigging had been standing well for the hour plus I was at the boat, putting sails up, moving it and waiting to launch - It would have come down during all this - remember the 20+ ! So how did the first shroud come off? Could my full sheeted out boom position somehow allowed enough slack to do this on it own?

Now for the 'lost overboard' shrouds. This was totally my fault. With mast laying across tramp I needed to unconnect forestay and shrouds in order to totally disconnect mast for haul back to shore (by powerboat now- help had arrived). My error - they slipped out of my hand and since both were dangling like weights overboard they slipped below the surface like sea snakes! Leason learned!

I am still at a loss - was it sabatage - I really doubt it! Its a respectable sailing club with many H18 top racers members. Could the stress and gusts pull the clevis pins out - the adjuster holes don't looked spread. Do the rings ever break off - maybe as they are only 1/32 of an inch ! and we had strong forces.

I reach out to you my felow Hobie sailors. I will be buy ALL new shrouds from this point on and expect Santa to bring me a few more gifts for next spring! Thank you, Frank

my bet goes for sabatage! this was years ago and i don't even remember which cat i had at the time...but i was 'almost' out in the water a when i noticed my split ring on thee side stay was inserted into the pin like may 1/16 of an inch--just enough to hold the mast up, but would definitely fall out quickly. i always left my mast up at the club and just wheeled it down the ramp, hoisted the sails and took off with no 'preflight'. i always inspected after that since i new my friends there --THE RUDDER CLUB OF JACKSONVILLE, FL--were only acquaintances!

In these parts where Hobie 18's are still very popular, the anchor bolt (the bit that comes out of the deck that the side stays attach to) are a very common point for failure. The problem seems to be on new boats as much as the older ones and is very difficult to predict as the start of the crack is not visible. Most of the guys down here change them every 2 years (or when they break)

Michael

mmiller wrote:

Yes... plenty of questions, but the basics:

Standing rigging (Shrouds, Forestay and Bridles) is critical. These should be inspected often. I take a trip around the boat and look at each clevis and ring, each time I launch.

Clevis pins are strong and seldom fail, but they can fall out. The rings that hold them in can catch on ropes and twist out allowing the clevis pins to fall out. You should tape over all clevis rings to be the safest. On the shrouds, you should tape over the lower sets and have a boot over the upper one in the adjuster. I would actually tape them all. This can help eliminate the ropes from dragging across the rings and pulling them out. Be careful when pulling the boot down over the rings. The rings can catch on the boot and as you pull the boot down the ring can pull out of the clevis.

The shroud shackle is similar. Very strong and seldom a failure unless the shackle pin comes out. These shackles have a hole in the pin to add a safety wire. A short length of stainless wire strand that passes through the pin hole and wraps around the shackle hoop as a "keeper". This prevents the pin from un-threading even if loose.

By the way, I had this happen in the Ocean one time on my 16. Just tacked out of the Mission Bay in San Diego and headed north on a port tack. The lee shroud started swaying free as one of the rings had come out and finally the clevis dropped out. I had my crew slip to the lee side and stick a bunjee hook into the shroud and adjuster. I stayed on port and sailed up the beach to just in front of the local Hobie Dealer back then (Hobie Sport Center) and sailed into the beach keeping the pressure on the port tack the whole way. The life guards were not too happy, but they understood once we came in through the surf. I had my crew run in, get a clevis and ring. We installed it and off we went for a nice day of sailing.

I was not as "luckey" on another day. The mast came down, but not hard. Usually the mast just floats down like a parachute when a shroud goes. We tacked and .... eeeeeeeeee plop the mast fell over. At least we were close to the beach that time.

You learn from your mistakes.... hopefully you also can learn from other peoples mistakes!